A Southern Charms Cozy Potluck Box Set Read online

  My heart dropped, and I yearned to give him comfort. He waved me off and pointed at the folder. I looked at photo after photo taken by someone who cared very much about him, making sure to catch every smile of his. When I flipped to the next one, my heart stopped.

  “From the look on your face, you found Jessica,” Mason said.

  My fingertip drew an outline around the girl with the light brown curls and full lips smiling back at me. “She's pretty,” I uttered in a hushed voice.

  “Took after her mother. Jessica is Marian's daughter, and we grew up together.” He reached out to take the picture from me.

  “So she was like your sister?” I proposed.

  Mason's response shattered my hope. “No, we were childhood sweethearts. You have to imagine what it was like growing up without a lot of affection. Marian placed me in a solid home, and they took good care of me. But when I turned eighteen, it was my duty to leave and let them care for someone else. I didn't really attach to any of my foster siblings either. The only person who connected with me was Jess.”

  At the mention of her name, an ugly emotion rooted itself in my heart. I found another photo of them together. Mason had his arm around her shoulder, staring at her while she posed for the camera. This beautiful girl had possessed Mason's heart, and I didn't like how it made me feel. It didn't take long to figure out the pinnacle of their story. “Was she your fiancée?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “I asked her after I graduated from college and before I went into the warden academy. The problem with falling in love when you’re a child is that it's hard to sustain when you’re not done changing. Only a lucky few who choose to change with each other make it.

  “She said yes when I asked, but I think by the time I made the force, her love for me had cooled. I got busy with the job and didn't notice, or didn't want to notice, how much she pulled away from me. I thought in order for our relationship to be perfect, I couldn’t stain it with my job, so I kept that part of myself out of our lives. It drove a wedge between us.”

  The next picture I turned to featured the two of them. It looked like one that had sat on someone’s mantle, faded by the sun. Jessica didn’t know Mason at all if she gave up on him so easily. At the same time, if the walls he built around his career were as tall and tough as the ones he’d constructed to keep me out, she might have had her reasons.

  He pointed at the wrinkle in my forehead. “Don’t judge her. She's not a bad person, but she broke my heart when she called off the engagement. And I'll admit that I didn't handle it very well. I was in my twenties when I had to deal with my first heartbreak. I hadn't even experienced crushes when I was younger, so it was like all that love that I needed from childhood got ripped out of me. I volunteered for special assignments that put me in touch with a less than savory crowd. It took me years to stop intentionally putting myself in harm's way.”

  The person he described sounded nothing like the stoic detective I’d met. “Did danger mend your broken heart?”

  Mason shook his head. “It took Marian and her insistence to interfere with my life to dislodge my head from my behind. Even though Jessica was her daughter, Marian still took care of me. To fix myself, I swung to the opposite extreme, becoming a rule follower rather than a breaker, and found solace in order. And that worked for a while until I found out that Jess was engaged to someone else.”

  “What did you do then?” I asked.

  “I moved here.”

  I searched through the pictures and found one of the two of them together. They both seemed happy, and my jealousy lessened. If they had not had the history they did, I might not be sitting here tonight with Mason.

  Putting the picture back in its place, I closed the folder. “Thank you for sharing that part of your life with me.”

  “The story doesn’t end there,” he exclaimed. “I told Marian all about life here in Honeysuckle, including you. She loved my story about our first meeting and scolded me for being so rude at your grandmother's house.

  “But you know what she liked best of all? She said that it sounded like I'd found the family I'd been wanting all the way down in a small Southern supernatural town. She asked what I was willing to do to keep it, and I told her anything. And then I gave her back her ring.” He watched me close for my reaction.

  I frowned. “I’m confused. That was her ring?”

  “It belonged to her, but she gave it to me to give to her daughter. When Jess broke things off, I couldn’t bear to part with it, and it's been in my wallet ever since. I don't know why I wanted it. I suppose it was a reminder of the pain for a while and then a tether to my old life. But when I saw it sitting in your hand that day, I knew it didn't belong in my life anymore.” He paused. “I’m glad I got a chance to give it back to Marian before she passed.”

  I didn't know what else to say. He wasn't the kind of person who needed platitudes of sympathy. I chose to remain quiet and swallow the desire to know if it was Marian's passing or the fact that he put his life on the line again that caused him to change.

  Mason chuckled. “I know I seem different to you, but that's because you didn't know me before. I feel more myself than I have in years, and finally accept my life as it is. I guess it took a funeral and a threat to my life to get me to break past my barriers.”

  I shivered at his ability to know what to say at just the right time. He shared a lot of information, and it would take a while for me to digest it.

  He stood and offered his hand. “I know it's getting late, and we have a lot of work to do tomorrow. If after hearing all of that we’re still a we.”

  I allowed him to pull me up, and I fell into his body. If ever there was a time to give him a hug, it was now. But I let the moment linger too long and it passed.

  Mason picked up the empty plates and folder, escorting me inside. I offered to wash the dishes, but he told me to leave them.

  He’d promised me more and delivered, leaving me with so much to process. But I couldn’t shake the disappointment of not making the more take a different direction.

  He walked me to the door and handed me the empty basket. Unwilling to leave without hugging him, I put it down and wrapped my arms around him tight so he couldn't escape. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to convey everything I felt into the embrace. My sympathy for his loss. My gratefulness for him opening up. My hope for whatever our futures held.

  Trying to avoid the awkward moment of the will we, won't we kiss, I picked up the basket and rushed out the door and down his front steps. The interior light bathed the night in a soft glow, and I used its gleam to find my bike.

  Mason called to me from the doorway, his shadow extending across his lawn. “Tonight's been about ending old chapters and beginning new ones. I hope after everything I shared, you understood that.”

  I tethered the basket on the rack behind my seat. “I did, but I'm not sure what that means for us.”

  He stepped into the light for me to see his face. “I’m saying that all the walls that I built between us before? I've torn them down, and they're not going back up.”

  Even with all the clarity from before, his cryptic statement still confused me. “I’m glad,” I replied, straddling the frame of my ride.

  “I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

  The light on the front of my bike lit my pathway home but did nothing to illuminate whether Mason meant there would be no barriers between us professionally or personally. A small seed of guilt planted itself, nagging me that after all he’d shared, I chose to keep my suspicions of my ex-fiancé locked away.

  Justifying that he’d asked not to bring the case into our time together, I did my best to ignore my regret and focus on the moments of our night that made my heart skip.

  Chapter Twelve

  The morning humidity clung to my skin, and dark clouds circled overhead. A storm was coming in more ways than one. It took me six times riding past the house and at least three trips back and forth from where I dropped my bicycle to th
e front door before I found my courage. Time was running out if I wanted to talk to Tucker and make it back to my place before Mason arrived.

  I knocked on the front door with a light rap of my knuckles, not wanting to make a whole lot of noise that the neighbors might hear in the early hour. My heart thumped loud enough I mistook it for footsteps from inside. When nobody answered, I increased the strength of my banging until my palm pounded on the wood.

  “I’m coming,” Tucker's voice grumbled from inside. With a click of a lock, he pulled the door open.

  In all the time when we were together, I couldn't remember him not looking put together and well-groomed. The disheveled man standing in front of me wore a stained undershirt over loose fitting shorts and sported a deep purple black eye.

  “Charli, to what do I owe the honor?” Tucker lifted a thick crystal tumbler in his left hand to his lips and gulped down the amber liquid inside it. “Wanna drink?”

  “It's after six in the morning, Tuck. What’re you doing?” I scolded.

  He sloshed the liquid around. “I’m taking my medicine. What do you care? I’m not your concern anymore.” Finishing the last drops of liquor, he waved me in. With unsteady steps, he left the door to his house open, so I stepped inside.

  The neatness of his place contrasted with his personal appearance. Tucker walked me into his living room, stopping by the fully stocked bar and pouring more alcohol from a fancy crystal decanter into his glass.

  When he filled it almost to the top, he lifted it in the air in my direction. “Breakfast of champions.” He smirked and took a long sip, smacking his lips with dramatic effect.

  “We need to talk,” I insisted.

  “I tried to do that with you not too long ago and you ran away,” he slurred. “I don’t see what we have to discuss now that’s so important.”

  A big part of me wanted to correct him and argue I hadn't run away from him. That I had stopped his former business partner before he did any more damage. But I didn't want a futile verbal match that went nowhere. I needed to stay focused, even if he couldn't.

  “How about we discuss how I found you yesterday morning, blind drunk and stumbling down the road? Or you can tell me how you got that shiner. Or how your knuckles on your right hand got messed up. Start with any of those.” I crossed my arms and waited.

  Pain and regret cast shadows across his face. He opened his mouth to answer but managed no words. Unable to handle my inquiry, he dropped his head. It plucked at my sympathies to wonder if the once strong man was on the verge of tears.

  Tucker glanced up and held my gaze, silently pleading with me…except I didn't know what he wanted.

  I sighed. “Talk to me, Tuck. We've got to figure this out before things get worse.”

  As if someone flipped a switch, his countenance changed in an instant. He wiped a hand down his unshaven face. “It's morning, right? Breakfast time. You want some breakfast?” He stumbled out of the living room, leaving me standing in the middle of it, bewildered.

  Without a plan in place, I made my way to his kitchen. “We don't have time for food.”

  He stood in front of the open refrigerator. “I can rustle you up some eggs. Do you still like them scrambled with a little onion and cheese in them? I don't think I have any bacon.”

  “I don't want breakfast. I want you to answer my questions,” I pushed. “What happened to you?”

  Tucker slammed the fridge door closed with a rattle. “See, what I don't understand is where you get off comin’ to my house and actin’ like I'm your problem to solve. You left me, Charli, and I moved on.”

  “That's not how you put it to me when you came to my grandmother's house that night.” I didn't know what possessed me to bring up the subject of his professed feelings, but his boozy indignation rubbed me the wrong way.

  “So are you here to try and win me back? Because I'm a real prize. I am the most successful guy in town. The one with the most promise to go the farthest in life.” He snorted and gulped down more alcohol. Holding out his arms, he presented himself. “If you want me, take me as I am. Because it don't get any better than this.” Pain radiated off of him, and I knew I needed to change tactics.

  Walking with careful steps to close the distance between us, I took the drink out of his hand and led him to the eat-in table. Pulling out a chair, I waited for him to sit. He reached for the drink but I moved it away and took the seat next to him.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I think what's wrong with you started before last night. You can talk to me. I'm still your friend.”

  Tucker's body crumpled in on itself, and he placed his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands. “It's all gone so wrong so fast. I've been tryin’ to handle it on my own, but things just got worse and worse. I wanted a clean slate when I married Clementine, you know.”

  “I know.” I didn't want to say too much to stop him from talking.

  He tilted his head to look at me sideways. “She thinks I'm the hero. The way she looks at me makes me think I could do anything. And I used to think I could. That I could get away with murder.” He flinched. “Bad choice of words.”

  “Are they?” I asked. “Do you know about Duke?”

  He nodded. “I assume that's why you're here. You think I might have something to do with his death.”

  “Do you?” My voice came out as a barely audible whisper.

  Tucker paused. He straightened in his chair and reached out a finger to push a strand of my hair behind my ear. “You know, you used to look at me like I could hang the moon. I miss that, too.”

  “Tucker—”

  “I don't remember,” he interrupted. He slumped against the back of his seat. “I’m serious. It's all gone so wrong.”

  “You keep saying that, but I don't know what you mean.”

  He eyed the glass of what I guessed was scotch I kept out of his reach. “You do and you don't. I'm pretty sure you knew or at least suspected what went on when I went down to Charleston sometimes when we were together.”

  I thought hard about our shared past. “You had scheduled meetings. You were young and ambitious, and you were trying to make business connections.”

  His eyes widened. “You mean, you really didn't know? That wasn't the reason why you left me?”

  “What reason, Tuck?”

  He paused, giving me a wary glance. With a sigh, he continued. “I said that I thought I could get away with anything. One of those things was visiting a gentlemen's club outside the city. It's a place where a lot of the Charleston magical elite went for after-hours entertainment.”

  Something that Ashton had said on his last night bubbled to the surface. “That's where you met your former business partner.”

  Tucker nodded. “I met Ashton at Hex Kittens as well as a few influential high rollers.”

  My mouth dropped. “Hex kittens? Really? What, is it a gentlemen’s club with supernatural strippers?” I mocked.

  “Yes,” replied Tucker without missing a beat. “But that's not what's important. Who I met there and what happened is where the trouble began.”

  It didn't take me long to connect the dots. “You met Duke there, didn't you?”

  “Once or twice. Nothing happened when I did, but that doesn't mean that catching his attention didn't screw me in the long run.” With a grunt, he reached past me and grabbed the tumbler of scotch. “They have the most beautiful women there. And I'm not so sure, but I think some of them are part succubi.”

  My nose wrinkled in disgust. “Maybe I don't need to hear the specifics.”

  Tucker glanced up after taking a long sip. “Maybe not. But you get the picture. Girls plus booze plus influential people equals a whole lot of potential money in the wrong hands.”

  I groaned. “Tell me Duke didn't have anything on you. Tell me I won't find your name written down in his black book.”

  He reached out and grasped my wrist. “Did you find it? Tell me you have it.”

  I shook my head. “No, we don
't know where it is.” Fear gripped my heart and I grabbed his hand. “Tucker, if he had something on you and was doing damage, then you had a whole lot of motive to do something to him. You need to talk to the wardens and tell them everything. Get ahead of this before—”

  “Before a detective comes to your house, asks the right questions, and arrests you,” finished Mason.

  Tucker and I jumped in our seats. Heat burned in my cheeks, and I swiveled to catch Mason's unhappy glare. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “That's my question for you,” he replied with a sharp curtness.

  Clementine stepped out from behind the detective. “I let him in. I was coming over to check on you, Tucker, and make you breakfast.” She set a paper bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. “Imagine my surprise to run into Detective Clairmont and see your bike sitting out front, Charli.”

  Realizing how the scene might look to someone walking in on us, I yanked my hand away from Tucker’s. “It's not what it looks like.”

  My ex shot out of his chair and rushed over to my cousin. “She was only trying to help me, Clem. I promise.”

  Mason ignored the couple's murmuring discussion and beckoned me out of the room with the crook of his finger.

  Hanging my head in shame, I shuffled into the living room. “I was trying to get him to tell me what happened.”

  Mason kept his back to me, and I watched his muscles flex and tighten. When he turned around, the hurt expression on his face made me regret my mistake.

  “After everything I told you last night,” he hissed. “Sitting around the fire, showing you those pictures. I let go of my past for a reason. And I find you here at an unreasonable hour in your former fiancé's house alone with him, coaching him on how he shouldn’t be at the top of our suspect list.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “I know it looks bad. I get that. And I really am so appreciative of how much you shared with me.”